Online reviews have become an important source of information for consumers, significantly influencing their purchasing decisions. However, the abundance and variety of review formats, especially the mix of text, image, and video elements, can lead to information overload and hinder effective decision-making. This study investigates how different review formats and their combinations affect the perceived helpfulness of reviews. We develop a comprehensive framework to analyze the interactions between text, image, and video elements and their impact on the helpfulness of reviews. We collect and code 8693 online reviews from JingDong Mall Mallacross six product categories, including both experience products and search products, and use multiple regression analysis to test our hypotheses. Our results show that textual review elements significantly increase review helpfulness. However, their effectiveness decreases as the amount of information increases, indicating cognitive overload. Text reviews are more prone to contribute to information overload, while visual elements such as images and videos generally do not contribute to information overload in the coexistence of text, image, and video reviews. Imagery components have a minimal effect on review helpfulness. Video elements are relatively short, which may not be sufficient to convey useful information. We also find that the impact of review formats varies between experience products and search products, and that star ratings moderate the alignment of textual or imagery components with consumer expectations. We conclude that the hybrid of text, image, and video elements in online reviews plays a crucial role in shaping consumer decision-making and information overload. Our research contributes to the literature on online reviews and information overload while providing practical implications for online retailers, review platforms, and consumers to optimize review formats, star ratings, and product types to facilitate informed purchase decisions.

How digital technology can effectively drive ecological collaborative governance in trans-administrative river basins is a core prerequisite for achieving intelligent ecological governance of river basins. Based on 402 micro survey responses collected from water conservancy, environmental protection and other relevant departments in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River Basin, this study identifies the characteristics of digital technology from three dimensions: tool, power and capacity. By integrating factor analysis and the mediating effect model, it empirically examines the impact of digital technology on inter-provincial ecological collaboration in river basins and its underlying mechanism. The results show that: (1) Digital technology exerts a significantly positive driving effect on inter-provincial ecological collaboration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River Basin, and this conclusion remains robust after conducting robustness tests including the re-measurement of digital technology and the exclusion of interference from smart water conservancy pilot projects. (2) Mechanism analysis reveals that central government support and public participation play partial mediating roles in the relationship between digital technology and inter-provincial ecological collaboration, and both variables exert a masking mediating effect on the sustainability of inter-provincial ecological collaboration. These findings provide micro-evidence-based policy implications for optimizing the digital collaborative governance system of river basins.

In recent years, blockchain has been increasingly used in shipping supply chains, enabling supply chain members to track the production process of shipping products, thereby increasing visibility for firms and boosting their competitiveness. When firms decide whether to invest in blockchain, they crucially consider the cost of development and fairness of profit distribution along the supply chain, with a particular focus on non-linear production cost and fairness concern. We build a Stackelberg game model for four scenarios utilizing a two-echelon supply chain made up of a single shipping company and a single freight forwarder, taking into account fairness concern and non-linear production cost. We analyze how participants in the shipping supply chain make decisions when the shipping company has non-linear production cost and the freight forwarder has fairness concern. The findings suggest that the interaction between the non-linear production cost of the shipping company and the level of fairness concern of the freight forwarder affects the managerial decisions of both the freight forwarder and the shipping company. In the presence of economies of scale or diseconomies of scale, fairness concern can effectively help the freight forwarder to increase its share of profits within the supply chain, while the shipping company changes in the opposite direction. Furthermore, when the freight forwarder takes fairness concern into account, its profit and utility do not always rise in direct proportion to the fairness concern degree. Interestingly, there is always an inverse relationship between the shipping company’s profit and the degree of fairness concern, regardless of whether there are economies of scale or diseconomies of scale. This paper provides management insights for companies considering blockchain in their plans, highlighting the importance of combining non-linear production cost and fairness concern to achieve profit goals.

Based on 402 micro-survey data from water conservancy, environmental protection and other departments in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River Basin, the characteristics of digital technology are identified from three dimensions: tools, power and capacity. Combined with factor analysis and mediating effect model, the impact and mechanism of digital technology on inter-provincial ecological coordination in the basin are empirically tested. Research shows that: (1) Digital technology has a significant positive driving effect on inter-provincial ecological coordination in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. After robustness tests such as re-measurement by digital technology and elimination of interference from smart water conservancy pilot projects, the conclusion still holds. (2) The mechanism path shows that central government support and public participation play a partial mediating role in the impact of digital technology on inter-provincial ecological coordination, and both have a masking mediating effect on the sustainability of inter-provincial ecological coordination-digital technology indirectly enhances the level of inter-provincial ecological coordination by strengthening central policy and financial support and broadening public participation channels. (3) In empirical tests, the dependent variable mostly relies on subjective scores, lacking cross-validation of objective indicators, and the logical chain of mechanism transmission is not clear enough. Based on this, targeted suggestions such as improving the policy system for digital collaboration in river basins and building a digital and intelligent public participation platform are put forward, providing practical references for the ecological collaborative governance of the Yangtze River Basin.